Lactuca perennis, common names:
Blue Lettuce or
Perennial lettuce, is a perennial
herbaceousA herbaceous plant is a plant that has leaves and stems that die down at the end of the growing season to the soil level. They have no persistent woody stem above ground...
plant species belonging to the genus
LactucaLactuca, commonly known as lettuce, is a genus of flowering plants in the daisy family Asteraceae. The genus includes about 100 species, distributed worldwide, but mainly in temperate Eurasia....
of the
AsteraceaeThe Asteraceae or Compositae , is an exceedingly large and widespread family of vascular plants. The group has more than 22,750 currently accepted species, spread across 1620 genera and 12 subfamilies...
family.
Description
Lactuca perennis reaches on average 60 centimetres (23.6 in) of height, with a minimum height of 20 centimetres (7.9 in). This plant is glabrous, the stems is erect and branched, leaves are greyish-green, the lower ones with a small petioles, the upper ones partly amplexicaul. It is hermaphrodite and entomophilous. The flowers are violet-blue, with a size of 30–40 mm (1.2–1.6 ). The flowering period extends from April through August and the seeds ripen from July until September.
Habitat
These plants prefer calcareous well-drained soils and they are common on sunny rocky soils, on dry meadows, on roadsides and on banks of rivers. They can be found on average at 500–2000 m (1,640.4–6,561.7 ) above sea level.
Medicinal properties
This wild lettuce has an abundant white latex (hence the Latin name
lactuca of the species, meaning milk) containing the substance "lactucarium" with many medicinal properties. It is especially useful as sedative, but the plant should be used with caution.
External links
The source of this article is
wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the
GFDL.
